(MISA/IFEX) – First Lady Marcelina Chissano has denied intimidating any of the country’s journalists, and has demanded that her “good name and right to privacy be respected.” A letter sent by her lawyer, Augusto Macedo Pinto, to the independent weekly “Mediafax”, and published on 1 November 2002, also stressed that the first lady wanted to […]
(MISA/IFEX) – First Lady Marcelina Chissano has denied intimidating any of the country’s journalists, and has demanded that her “good name and right to privacy be respected.”
A letter sent by her lawyer, Augusto Macedo Pinto, to the independent weekly “Mediafax”, and published on 1 November 2002, also stressed that the first lady wanted to see the case of the murder of Carlos Cardoso, the newspaper’s founding editor, “resolved as rapidly as possible, and the guilty parties tried and sentenced.”
The letter, which made no explicit threat of legal action, was clearly in response to claims made a month ago that the first lady had sent mysterious gifts of live chickens to “Mediafax” editor Marcelo Mosse, Fernando Lima, chairman of the board of Mediacoop (the company that owns the newspaper), and Kok Nam, director of the Mediacoop weekly “Savana”.
The delivery of the chickens followed “Mediafax”‘s publication of articles concerning “o filho do galo” (“the son of the cockerel”). The newspaper had revealed that a new witness, named only as “Opa”, had been heard by the magistrate investigating the Cardoso murder. Opa had just been released from Maputo’s top security prison after serving half of a 10-year sentence for illegal possession of firearms. While in jail, he had come to know Momade Assife Abdul Satar (alias “Nini”), one of the businessmen accused of ordering Cardoso’s assassination. According to “Mediafax”, Opa testified that Nini had told him he was merely a go-between, acting on behalf of “o filho do galo.” The following day, an article by Lima, entitled “A chicken called Nyimpine”, identified “o filho do galo” as Nyimpine Chissano, President Joaquim Chissano’s son. Lima said that when asked the identity of “o filho do galo”, Opa had given Nyimpine Chissano’s name, and the president son’s name had been entered in the minutes of the hearing.
The men who delivered the live chickens to the three journalists claimed they were a gift from the first lady, and journalists believe they came from a poultry farm owned by Marcelina Chissano in the city of Matola. However, a spokesperson for the first lady’s office denied any knowledge of the chickens. “Mediafax” interpreted the delivery of the chickens as a peculiar type of veiled threat.
Pinto’s letter neither confirmed or denied that Marcelina Chissano had sent the chickens. The letter insisted that “no journalist was, or ever will be, intimidated or threatened.” Pinto claimed that the first lady’s “most elementary individual rights [had] been violated,” notably through “lack of rigour and objectivity” in the press. “Facts are invented, rumours are used, the privacy and intimate sphere of her family relations are invaded, with the intent to create tension within her family, and seriously damage the good image and reputation of all her relatives,” Pinto claimed. The honour and consideration due to the first lady “have been deeply and seriously affected, with grave social repercussions,” the letter continued, while calling for an end to “public trials” in the pages of the press, and stressing that “it is universally recognised that all citizens have the right to honour, good name, reputation, the defence of their public image, and to their privacy.”
Background Information
Cardoso, a veteran independent journalist and editor of the daily fax newspaper “Metical”, was shot dead on 22 November 2000 as he left his newspaper’s offices in the Maputo suburb of Polana. After two vehicles cut off Cardoso’s car, two unidentified assassins opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles, killing him instantly and seriously wounding his driver.
In 2000, Nymphine Chissano filed a criminal defamation suit against Mosse, then editor of “Metical”, having assumed the position after Cardoso’s murder. Facing mounting legal pressure, “Metical” ceased publication earlier in 2002. Mosse subsequently became editor of “MediaFax”.
The recent incident also came only weeks after one of the alleged gunmen in the Cardoso killing escaped from prison in Maputo. Anibal Antonio dos Santos Junior, known as Anibalzhino, escaped from prison in early September.
Shortly before Cardoso’s death, “Metical” had been reporting aggressively on alleged wrongdoing at the Mozambique Commercial Bank.